Tag: Houston Rockets

The GOAT Ladder Part 8: #215-211

Who is the greatest NBA player of all time? I will be seeking the NBA GOAT in a series of posts featuring wide-ranging descriptions of the top 250 players in league history. For an explanation of what the stats I’ll be using mean, read the five-part intro starting here and continuing in Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. For each player on the ladder, from #250 to #1, I’ll be including three key graphics (plenty of other views will appear throughout, but these three will be in every write-up):

  1. Grades – Percentile values for the player’s rank among all players in NBA history. They are explained further in Part 5 of the intro.
  2. ON_GOD – A per-game expression of a player’s impact on both offense and defense. ON_GOD is described in Part 4 of the intro.
  3. Z-Scores – A score that standardizes a player’s contribution to allow for comparison across eras. Part 3 of the intro explains D_SCORE, and Part 2 outlines O_SCORE.

Above these graphics, I will report two measurements for each player: his GPA (the average of his grades from the “Report Card”) and career awards. I have gone through and retroactively assigned awards for every NBA season since 1952-53 (the first season for which data is relatively complete). The awards listed here are a record of who I think should have won them, not a record of who actually won them.

If you’re curious about comparing these players with others, you can find both basic box score stats and my suite of advanced stats from the Stats page, or simply by using the “Stats” dropdown menu at the top of the page.

Continue reading “The GOAT Ladder Part 8: #215-211” →
 

The GOAT Ladder Part 6: #225-221

Who is the greatest NBA player of all time? I will be seeking the NBA GOAT in a series of posts featuring wide-ranging descriptions of the top 250 players in league history. For an explanation of what the stats I’ll be using mean, read the five-part intro starting here and continuing in Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. For each player on the ladder, from #250 to #1, I’ll be including three key graphics (plenty of other views will appear throughout, but these three will be in every write-up):

  1. Grades – Percentile values for the player’s rank among all players in NBA history. They are explained further in Part 5 of the intro.
  2. ON_GOD – A per-game expression of a player’s impact on both offense and defense. ON_GOD is described in Part 4 of the intro.
  3. Z-Scores – A score that standardizes a player’s contribution to allow for comparison across eras. Part 3 of the intro explains D_SCORE, and Part 2 outlines O_SCORE.

Above these graphics, I will report two measurements for each player: his GPA (the average of his grades from the “Report Card”) and career awards. I have gone through and retroactively assigned awards for every NBA season since 1952-53 (the first season for which data is relatively complete). The awards listed here are a record of who I think should have won them, not a record of who actually won them.

If you’re curious about comparing these players with others, you can find both basic box score stats and my suite of advanced stats from the Stats page, or simply by using the “Stats” dropdown menu at the top of the page.

Continue reading “The GOAT Ladder Part 6: #225-221” →
 

Failure to Launch

by Alan Moghaddam

The Houston Rockets are at a point of critical failure – or rather, they have reached a crux with more than one point of critical failure.

The Rockets’ record stands at 13-7 roughly a quarter of the way into the regular season. It has finally been long enough to shake off the “it’s too early to comment” crowd, and we can finally make some valid statement about this team long-term. To all appearances, things are not looking particularly spectacular for a team that entered the season with championship expectations.

Continue reading “Failure to Launch” →
 

What is TPA?

by Alan Moghaddam

Chances are if you’re into sports you’ve seen the famed charts from @NBA_Math that feature overlapping pictures of NBA players in a conventional Cartesian plot with a line plotted on it (y=-x). Anything above the line is good, anything below is bad, and average values will tend to walk the line. The graph is a visual attempt to quantify some mystery statistic known as TPA.

This is a standard TPA graph from @NBA_Math

What is TPA?

This is something of a loaded question; the acronym TPA stands for “Total Points Added”. The basic idea behind it is that a player adds points on offense and defense. You then total these subsections to get TPA.

Unfortuantely, the definition above is rather incomplete. We now need to understand Offensive Points Added (OPA) and Defensive Points Saved (DPS), the components which make up TPA. The two subcategories are much more complex than TPA alone.

To get OPA and DPS, we need to use “Box Plus/Minus,” an all-in-one statistic created by Daniel Myers and hosted at basketball-reference.com. I promise we are almost at the bottom of the well here in terms of stat definitions. Box Plus/Minus is a relativistic stat that gauges a player’s impact on team performance when s/he is on the court. S/he again will have an impact on both defense and offense, so accordingly Box Plus/Minus can break down into two stats: Offensive Box Plus/Minus (OPBM) and Defensive Box Plus/Minus (DPBM). We can already see that TPA has the same structure as Box Plus Minus; both purport to measure a player’s impact on both ends of the floor. What is the difference between the two?

Equation 1. Calculation of TPA as a function of Defensive Points Saved and Offensive Points Awarded
Continue reading “What is TPA?” →
 

P.J. Tucker Looks to Secure the Bag

After two years as the Rockets’ stopper, P.J. Tucker is looking to secure the bag. Tucker has two seasons and $16.3 million left on his current contract, at the end of which he will be 36 years old. Tucker’s motivation in seeking a contract extension is entirely sensible; his market value is high, meaning he is deserving of a raise. Signing an extension now would also guarantee his income into the final phase of his career. Asking for an extension is the smart move for Tucker, but what should the Rockets do?

In the last four seasons, P.J. Tucker has compiled 17.3 Wins, an average of 4.3 per season. 14.4 of those wins (83.2%) have come on the defensive end, and Tucker is known by reputation around the league as a defensive specialist.

Continue reading “P.J. Tucker Looks to Secure the Bag” →